Optimal age replacement policy with replacement occurrence while the warranty is in effect

Abstract

This study considers an age replacement policy (ARP) for a repairable product with an increasing failure rate with and without a product warranty. As for the warranty policy to consider in association with such an age replacement policy, we adapt a renewable minimal repair-replacement warrant (MRRW) policy with 2D factors of failure time of the product and its corresponding repair time. The expected cost rate during the life cycle of the product is utilized as a criterion to find the optimal policies for both with and without the product warranty. We determine the optimal replacement age that minimizes the objective function which evaluates the expected cost rate during the product cycle and investigate the impact of several factors on the optimal replacement age. The main objective of this study lies on the generalization of the classical age replacement policy to the situation where a renewable warranty depending on 2D factors is in effect. We present some interesting observations regarding the effect of relevant factors based on numerical analysis.